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From: "Doug and Chris Showalter" <>
Subject: Plymouth Congregational, Worcester
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 10:30:55 -0400


Greetings,

The best resource book for the identification of any New England Congregational Church is:

Richard H. Taylor, The Church of Christ of the Congregational Way in New England (Benton Harbor, Michigan: 1989).

He traces all of them into the modern day, showing their mergers, and in some cases, their switches of denominational affiliation or extinctions. He doesn't trace where their records are/went. Using this resource I traced Worcester's Plymouth Congregational Church through four different mergers. Its descendant today appears to be the United Congregational Church of Worcester at 6 Institute Road.

Richard Taylor has also compiled and self-published guides to Congregational churches in other parts of the country.

People wanting to know where Massachusetts Congregational church records are, may find some help in:

Harold Field Worthley, An Inventory of the Records of the Particular (Congregational) Churches of Massachusetts Gathered 1620-1805 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970). I say "may" find some help, because while his work is very comprehensive, church records have a way of being moved over the years, and sometimes, sad to say, lost. Also note, this work covers only those churches gathered through 1805--which, still, is many of them in MA.

The best place for Congregational research is The Congregational Library at 14 Beacon Street in Boston. It's a wonderful resource. They also have a web site.

Best wishes,
Rev. Dr. Doug Showalter


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